


Temporality

by eomerking



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: A Lot of Issues, Daddy Issues, Emotional Fallout, Multi, Seong Min Ryder, Seong is a seething ball of rage, Swearing, is not here for any of this bullshit, unresolved anger issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-26
Updated: 2017-05-25
Packaged: 2018-11-04 23:45:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11001495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eomerking/pseuds/eomerking
Summary: Andromeda was not something she ever wanted, but it was the last chance to perhaps regain her fractured family. She owes her mother that much, she thinks. But the rest of this bullshit? Kett, the Scourge, Angaran guerrillas, being the goddamn Pathfinder?It wasn't exactly on the fucking pamphlet.





	Temporality

**Author's Note:**

> Basically, to me, Andromeda felt a bit emotionally flat? if my dad ballsed up my dream job back home, took me to a new galaxy, died, then transferred a scarily ridiculously smart AI into my head id be more than a lil ticked off ygm?
> 
> So this is Seong, who is very angry.

**_Welcome back-_ **

SAM’s voice rings across the room, the soft voice bouncing off the harsh edges of the Nexus architecture. It sounds almost as if he’s speaking inside Seong’s head. It hurts, a little bit.

Seong knows that the sound should wake her, should make her rise quickly from her prone position and launch into the routine that has been so dutifully trained into her. She should learn, assess the situation, and then act. But all she can think about is the buzzing of her biotics under her skin. The energy prickles at her fingertips, begging for a release, for her to lash out. Seong hasn’t fought this hard for self-control in years.

She keeps her eyes closed, her breath even, ignoring SAM’s next attempts to rouse her. Seong couldn’t give a fuck at the moment, not when her biotics are close to ripping free. Behind her eyelids she can almost _see_ the blue arching away from her body; she’s surprised she hasn’t already singularitied herself into mush.

“Ryder? You still with us?”

Male, British – London? _Kosta_. He sounds unsure, but hopeful. Seong’s hands clench at her side; her breath comes as a sharp hiss as she breathes out. Dark energy shifts round her with a _crack_ and a harsh smell of ozone. Her teeth clench. Every hair on her body raises and prickles.

She sits up in one, sudden movement that has Kosta reeling back from his vigilant position at her feet. Her body shakes with the effort of not shredding a whole in the wall. Seong meets Kosta’s gaze for the barest of seconds – his dark and wide and so alarmed – the lets her eyes fall shut as she concentrates on just breathing instead.

**_-Seong Min._ **

Seong’s hands curl around the edge of her seat and she tries not to flinch at the sound of her own name. In the second it takes for her to straighten the curve of her spine, to ease the tension in her shoulders, Kosta has comm’d more people into the room. Seong looks about through narrowed eyes. _The SAM Node above the Hyperion?_

All around her is the cool, grey steel that makes up very goddamn construct the Initiative built; smooth lines and seamless joinery. It’s perfect, pristine – every inch gleaming. Seong is sick to the fucking back teeth of it already.

“You’re up!” An Asari doctor enters in a hurry, already scrolling through her omni-tool. _T’Perro, maybe? What happened to Doctor Carlyle?_ Lieutenant Harper follows quickly, her face creased with worry and an eagerness that Seong can’t quite configure. Harper eyes track the flux of energy around Seong immediately, and her own biotics flare quietly in response. Seong bites back a snarl at the implication that she cannot handle her own abilities.

T’Perro waves a hand in Seong’s face, catching her attention. The doctor’s omni-tool cradles her fingers in light that she instructs Seong to follow. Her eyes are led to her father’s N7 helmet, left discarded to the side. It’s scratched; paint scuffed and worn away, but at least the face-plate hasn’t been smashed in.

“What happened?” Seong’s voice is rough, curling out of her mouth in a way that makes her grimace. She looks to Harper, expecting some sort of answer from her superior (if superior is the right word. Seong came to the Initiative late, and hierarchies seem muddled in a way that makes her restlessly longer for the structure of the Alliance). The Lieutenants eyes are far too expressive for someone trained by Asari commandos.

**_You were clinically dead for twenty-two seconds._ **

SAM’s answer makes T’Perro flinch.

“That’s not what I asked.”

Lieutenant Harper and T’Perro share a glance that is both nervous and full of pity. Seong looks to Kosta instead, and the man answers by looking firmly at his feet. Behind her, SAM’s holo display floods the room with a blue light that is constant and humming. It fits. Right now Seong’s biotics are amped up so much she’s surprised she’s not vibrating.

Seong nods.

“Okay.”

“I’m sorry, Seong, I know this must be a blow.”

There is a certain expectancy to those words that Seong just can’t _stand_. Never mind the fact that Harper is addressing her by name. Do they expect her to start weeping here? Should she declare Alec Ryder a hero then fall to her knees? What did he do exactly, apart from strand them leaderless smack-bang in the middle of a hostile situation?

Fuck that. He was supposed to be a genius.

They seem to take her silence as a measure of her sorrow, and Seong watches as Harper seems to fall into her own pain. She recounts something about Alec wanting to die under foreign stars and Seong forces down the scoff that springs to being in her throat. Of course he did. Alec Ryder breathed his last in a galaxy that didn’t know about his disgrace. Kosta rests his hand on Harper’s shoulder and Seong shuts her eyes.

Then opens them in a flash.

“Why am I in SAM Node?”

Harper is startled from her story, and looks wildly to T’Perro.

“It’s… something to do with your connection with SAM. He’s now part of you – in a way that… honestly, we don’t understand. It played havoc with your brain.”

Seong’s hand moves to the back of her neck, to the implant site. It’s hot and raw under her fingertips, and now she’s aware of it the raw skin begins to throb. Her biotics jump around the site in a way that makes her nauseous. That fucking AI. The reason her family name was black-marked back home.

**_Your father authorized the authority of Pathfinder to be passed to you._ **

Seong freezes, hand still at the back of her neck. She looks to Harper, eye’s sharp under the waves of hair that have fallen in them. The Lieutenant looks back with a clenched jaw.

“The Lieutenant is next in the chain of command.” Seong says, slowly, carefully.

“Yes, but that’s not what happened.” There’s a bite to Harper’s voice that encourages the anger within Seong. Unbidden, Seong’s lip curls and she looks down, struggling to keep herself level.

“You’re the new Pathfinder.” Harper states.

There is another _crack_ as Seong’s biotics refuse to remain leashed, and it’s answered by a fierce glow from Harper’s hands.

“Is this a piss take?” The bite in Seong’s voice makes Harper’s sound like a mere tinge of annoyance.

“What’s the matter? Don’t think you’re up for it?” Kosta’s voice is light, jovial. Seong can’t tell whether he’s trying to alleviate the situation or if he’s just a fucking idiot. Harper places a warning hand on his elbow.

The curl in Seong’s lip blooms into a fully formed snarl and for a millisecond Seong wants nothing more than to rip the implant from her neck, twenty-two seconds of brain death be well and truly fucking _damned_.

Who was her father to do this to her? Over twenty-five years of compounded issues suddenly came to a neat and furious head as the consequences of Alec’s latest and final move dawned upon her.

Seong lets out a harsh, angry laugh – one tinged with equal parts panic and rage.

“What the _fuck_.”

“Seong Min-” Doctor T’Perro holds out a placating hand, voice coloured with something that is probably meant to soothe. Lieutenant Harper’s biotics glow fiercer, and Kosta’s ‘tool is at ready position. People she doesn’t know using her name – presuming that _connection_ – only heightens her ire.

“ _No_. The man hasn’t thought clearly since my mother died! You think this is any different?” Seong’s words crack out like a whip. She pushes her hair from her face and looks between the three people gathered around her.

“You’re _father_ had _faith_ in you, Seong Min.” The Lieutenant’s voice is hard, admonishing, as if Seong is simply a child having a tantrum. “Who are we to doubt that trust? Who are _you_?”

The question stops Seong short.

“Fuck. You.” She snarls, already halfway to her feet when T’Perro intervenes. Her omni-tool glares between them.

“This is all academic anyhow. SAM is connected to you on a _deeper_ level now.” Her pale eyes refuse to let Seong’s own go, “Trying to untangle it could kill you.”

T’Perro’s statement is simple and succinct, and it succeeds in igniting the powder keg of Seong’s anger. She didn’t choose this; Andromeda or being her father’s successor. Her biotics explode in a split-second, rocketing out and burning white in the time it takes for Lieutenant Harper to slam a barrier around her. Seong falls back onto the slab heavily, shoulders heaving. She can taste metal in her mouth.

There is silence for a good few moments. The echoes of Seong’s biotics flicker around the room, _cracking_ loudly in the quiet. The energy build-up may have been let out, but Seong’s body still shakes from it. Her temples begin to throb in rhythm, and it takes Seong a fraction too long to figure out that not all the moisture on her face was sweat.

She rubs her hand above her lips, ignoring how the muscles in her arm trembled. The blood from her nose is dark and striking against the clammy-pallor of her skin. Her rage refuses to abate despite her explosion, but at least now the buzzing in her bones has gone. Joining the anger is a swiftly rising urge to be violently sick.

“She needs rest.” T’Perro says coolly, pressing her fingers under Seong’s chin, pinning Seong in place with a clenched hand before she can wrench herself free.

“We don’t have time for this,” Harper answers, voice just as calm, “She’s the Pathfinder, like it or not, and people need her.”

T’Perro’s gaze is unrelenting as she inspects Seong’s face, and when their eyes meet Seong can find only soft traces of pity and regret in the pale depths. Pressing a wad of cloth to Seong’s nose, T’Perro draws away, deeming her in need of no more attention. Seong swallows the bile filling her mouth and tries to ignore the burning in her neck.

“You have two hours, _Pathfinder_ ,” Harper intones, already leading the group out of the Node. “We’ve got shit to do.”

**Author's Note:**

> im not sure that is not how biotics work, but then im also not sure that that /isn't/ how biotics work therefore its a perfectly plausible situation. ty nd goodnight x


End file.
